Cuomo 2005 Costa d’Amalfi Furore (Campania) – Piedirosso and aglianico. Red berries run over by a bulldozer. There’s such a crazy mix of pretty red fruit, sun-baked warmth, and spiky acidity here that I’m not at all sure what to think about the wine. I’m sure guzzling it on the Amalfi Coast would make it all clear. But in frigid Boston, it’s an appealing but ultimately confusing wine. I like it, for all that, but it will need the right food. (12/07)

Aia dei Colombi 2005 Guardia Sanframondi Falanghina (Campania) – Grasses, herbs, flowers and leaves; this is a garden shop with a misty humidity that dries around the edges. Focused and enticing. A very pleasant wine, with more available for the digging but no insistence on its own importance. (3/07)

2002 Taurasi (Campania) – I didn’t forget to indicate a producer; this was hand-bottled (under a plug-shaped plastic doodad) and labeled with pen on a sticky label by a relative of a relative, then gifted to us a few years ago during a visit to Rome. I’ve since waited for a good time to open it, feeling that the closure wouldn’t allow any sort of typical Taurasi aging curve, and a few expressions of enthusiasm for aglianico from guests gives me the opportunity. At first whiff, some of the classic homebrew flaws are in evidence – brett, some volatile acidity – but as the wine airs, these are subsumed into the wine’s classic, typicité-revelatory qualities. There’s the blackest fruit well-laden with dark tannin, wild backcountry acidity, and a spicy, mineral-driven core swirling with razor-edged iron shards. (The next day, the flaws are gone, leaving only the blackberry-dominated fruit, tannin, and all that aforementioned ferric goodness.) One guest hesitantly jokes that it might be the wine of the night, but even given the stiff competition (and acknowledging a likely reduction in objectivity, given the source) I’ll state it with full confidence. This is a remarkable achievement, and without question the best true amateur wine I’ve ever tasted. (2/07)